Noah Webster Quotes

35 Sourced Quotes

In my view, the Christian religion is the most important and one of the first things in which all children, under a free government ought to be instructed.

Noah Webster
The ecclesiastical establishments of Europe, which serve to support tyrannical governments, are not the Christian religion, but abuses and corruptions of it. The religion of Christ and his apostles, in it primitive simplicity and purity, unencumbered with the trappings of power and the pomp of ceremonies, is the surest basis of a republican government.

Noah Webster
When a citizen gives his suffrage to a man of known immorality he abuses his trust; he sacrifices not only his own interest, but that of his neighbor; he betrays the interest of his country.

Noah Webster
The Bible must be considered as the great source of all the truth by which men are to be guided in government as well as in all social transactions.

Noah Webster
All the miseries and evils which men suffer from vice, crime, ambition, injustice, oppression, slavery and war, proceed from their despising or neglecting the precepts contained in the Bible.

Noah Webster
No truth is more evident to my mind than that the Christian religion must be the basis of any government intended to secure the rights and privileges of a free people.

Noah Webster
An immense effect may be produced by small powers wisely and steadily directed.

Noah Webster
There is no alternative. Every possible reason that could ever be offered for altering the spelling of words, still exists in full force; and if a gradual reform should not be made in our language, it will proof that we are less under the influence of reason than our ancestors.

Noah Webster
The education of youth should be watched with the most scrupulous attention. [I]t is much easier to introduce and establish an effectual system... than to correct by penal statutes the ill effects of a bad system.... The education of youth... lays the foundations on which both law and gospel rest for success.

Noah Webster
The Bible is the chief moral cause of all that is good and the best corrector of all that is evil in human society; the best book for regulating the temporal [secular] concerns of men.

Noah Webster
The causes which destroyed the ancient republics were numerous; but in Rome, one principal cause was the vast inequality of fortunes.

Noah Webster
Treason is the highest crime of a civil nature of which a man can be guilty.

Noah Webster
Language, as well as the faculty of speech, was the immediate gift of God.

Noah Webster
Where will you find any code of laws among civilized men in which the commands and prohibitions are not founded on Christian principles? I need not specify the prohibition of murder, robbery, theft, trespass.

Noah Webster
In selecting men for office, let principle be your guide. Regard not the particular sect or denomination of the candidate-look to his character.

Noah Webster
The American states have gone far in assisting the progress of truth; but they have stopped short of perfection. They ought to have given every honest citizen an equal right to enjoy his religion and an equal title to all civil emoluments, without obliging him to tell his religion. Every interference of the civil power in regulating opinion, is an impious attempt to take the business of the Deity out of his own hands; and every preference given to any religious denomination, is so far slavery and bigotry.

Noah Webster
The Virginians have little money and great pride, contempt of Northern men, and great fondness for a dissipated life. They do not understand grammar.

Noah Webster
The duties of men are summarily comprised in the Ten Commandments, consisting of two tables; one comprehending the duties which we owe immediately to God-the other, the duties we owe to our fellow men.

Noah Webster
When you become entitled to exercise the right of voting for public officers, let it be impressed on your mind that God commands you to choose for rulers just men who will rule in the fear of God. The preservation of a republican government depends on the faithful discharge of this duty.

Noah Webster
The heart should be cultivated with more assiduity than the head.

Noah Webster
The Moral Law is summarily contained in the Decalogue or Ten Commandments; written by the finger of God on two tablets of stone, and delivered to Moses on Mount Sinai.

Noah Webster
To exterminate our popular vices is a work of far more importance to the character and happiness of our citizens than any other improvements in our system of education.

Noah Webster
Correcting his wife's language after she had caught him with a chambermaid:
Mrs Webster: Noah, I'm surprised.
Noah Webster: No, my dear. You are amazed. It is we who are surprised.

Noah Webster
Every child in America should be acquainted with his own country. He should read books that furnish him with ideas that will be useful to him in life and practice. As soon as he opens his lips, he should rehearse the history of his own country.

Noah Webster
Discipline our youth in early life in sound maxims of moral, political, and religious duties.

Noah Webster